


Success

by lmeden



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-25
Updated: 2010-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/lmeden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Draco is not a coward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Success

**Author's Note:**

> I was suddenly feeling rather literary, and this is what happened. I might expand on it later, include Harry and Horcruxes and all that. Maybe.

He had succeeded.

 

But only in killing himself.

 

Draco stared at the dark mark engraved in his arm. Its coils of black ink seemed surreal and distant. It was so very Dark against his pale, pale flesh.

 

He remembered that terrible night, when he had met Dumbledore in the astronomy tower, when he had _not _been a coward. He had hidden from and shirked his duty – to himself, his family, to the Dark Lord – all term. But on that dark and terrible night he had not been a coward. And when the Headmaster had said how he believed in him, in Draco, and how he knew that Draco wanted something else from life – what that something else was, was so distant that Draco could not begin to imagine it in all of its winding and soul-wreaking glory – Draco had not listened. He had heard not a single word, not wanted to hear a word, and drawn his wand and hated and killed Albus Dumbledore. Snape had taken him from the school, though of course he could have escaped alone. He had proven himself. He was not weak.

 

He remembered running, Snape grasping his wrist with a cruel grip. And Potter coming after them, screaming. Potter’s eyes, flaring bright green against the firelight. And the crush of apparition. Then they had been home, at the Manor, and Snape was speaking to him but Draco hadn’t been able to make out a single word. Later he had walked up to his room – by this time, even dear Aunt Bella couldn’t frighten him, he had grown so strong and brave. He had nearly smiled at the frustrated and twisted look that he overtaken her face when she tried to ambush him on the stairs.

 

Why, he was like a hero, now. Far braver than Potter. Much more courageous.

 

He looked back down at his arm, wondering dully how the Dark Mark had come to be there. He felt as if something was missing, he was missing something. Like life. He had most likely killed it, like he had killed Dumbledore.

 

He looked up at himself in the mirror. He saw a pale and bony face, small and sharp. He tried not to hate himself or love himself, but to only look. It was no use. As he stared at the ghost of a boy in the mirror he moved, driven in a shambling run to the bathroom by his nausea. 

 

-end


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